Parents’ Grief in the Context of Adult Child Mental Illness: A Qualitative Review

Research indicates that parents and other family members often grieve their child or relative’s mental illness. This grief appears resultant from a profound sense of loss, which has been described as complicated and nonfinite (e.g., Atkinson in Am J Psychiatry 151(8):1137–1139, 1994; Davis and Schultz in Soc Sci Med 46(3):369–379, 1998; Jones in Br J Soc Work 34:961–979, 2004; MacGregor in Soc Work 39(2):160–166, 1994; Osborne and Coyle in Couns Psychol Q 15(4):307–323, 2002; Ozgul in Aust N Z J Fam Ther 25(4):183–187, 2004; Tuck et al. in Arch Psychiatric Nurs 11(3):118–125, 1997). This paper reviews existent research in this emerging field, with a focus on parents’ grief experience in relation to their adult child’s mental disorder. Studies that explore parents’ and family members’ grief, using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, are considered. Research evidence for the association between parents’ and family members’ grief and other outcomes are discussed. Findings concerning the prediction of grief in parents and family members who have a child or relative with a mental disorder will be reviewed. Finally, this paper considers methodological and theoretical issues associated with existent research and presents options for further study.     

Promoting Positive Adaptation in Adult Survivors of Natural Disasters

This article integrates the guidelines of American Red Cross and the Psychological First Aid: Field Operations Guide (Brymer et al., 2006) with adult development theories to demonstrate the promotion of adaptive functioning in adults after a disaster. Case examples and recommendations for counselors working in disaster situations are included.     

Low‐income parents' warmth and parent–child activities for children with disabilities,suspected delays and biological risks

Warm and responsive parenting is optimal for child development, but this style of parenting may be difficult for some parents to achieve. This study examines how parents' observed warmth and their reported frequency of parent–child activities were related to children's classifications as having biological risks or a range of disability indicators. Children were low‐income prekindergarteners who participated in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project Longitudinal Follow‐up. Data from parent, early care and education staff reports, and direct child assessments were used to classify children into the following groups: disabilities, suspected delays, biological risks, disabilities and biological risk, suspected delays and biological risk, and no disability indicator. Socioeconomic status (ethnicity, maternal education and poverty level) and maternal depression were controlled in the analyses. The parents of children with disabilities and suspected delays evidenced significantly lower levels of warmth and less frequent parent–child activities compared with other parents. The parents of children with biological risk factors who did not also have disabilities or suspected delays did not exhibit decreased warmth and less frequent parent–child activities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Step‐by‐Step Guide to Using Secondary Data for Psychological Research

The purpose of this paper is to serve as a primer for those who have never used, or even considered using, secondary data as a resource for psychological research. Secondary data (SD) can provide a unique methodological tool with which to examine psychological issues and can serve as a valuable contribution to a program of research. However, this important resource may often be overlooked because its use can sometimes appear daunting and time‐consuming. We seek to assist new users of SD by describing the process in a step‐by‐step manner. We address both benefits and challenges to anticipate when using SD, and discuss identifying and acquiring potential datasets, creating a personalized dataset, variable creation, statistical considerations, and the potential problem of conflicting findings when large datasets are used by multiple researchers. Our goal is to encourage researchers who are novices to the approach to consider using SD as an adjunct to their program of research.     

Predicting Marital Adjustment from Young Adults’ Initial Levels and Changes in Emotional Intimacy over Time: A 25-Year Longitudinal Study

Emotional intimacy has long been known to influence marital adjustment. However, little is known about whether emotional intimacy experienced and developed during early adulthood predicts marital adjustment at a later time. Using longitudinal data from a sample of recent university graduates (N = 144) at five data points over a period of 25 years, it was found that higher levels of earlier emotional intimacy with a closest other and change in emotional intimacy over the first 8 years predicted Wave 5 marital adjustment. On average, women reported greater emotional intimacy than men at Wave 1. Neither change in marital status nor gender moderated the associations between emotional intimacy intercept and slope with marital adjustment at Wave 5. These as well as cluster analytic findings are discussed in light of Erikson’s developmental theory and applied to the idea that emotional intimacy may be a skill that can be developed and potentially modified.     

Is desynchrony tolerance adaptable in the perceptual organization of speech?

Speech signal components that are desynchronized from the veridical temporal pattern lose intelligibility. In contrast, audiovisual presentations with large desynchrony in visible and audible speech streams are perceived without loss of integration. Under such conditions, the limit of desynchrony that permits audiovisual integration is also adaptable. A new project directly investigated the potential for adaptation to consistent desynchrony with unimodal auditory sine-wave speech. Listeners transcribed sentences that are highly intelligible, with veridical temporal properties. Desynchronized variants were created by leading or lagging the tone analog of the second formant relative to the rest of the tones composing the sentences, in 50-msec steps, ranging from 250-msec lead to 250-msec lag. In blocked trials, listeners only tolerated desynchronies <50 msec, and exhibited no gain in intelligibility to consistent desynchrony. Unimodal auditory and bimodal audiovisual forms of perceptual integration evidently exhibit different temporal characteristics, an indication of distinct perceptual functions.     

Anthropology of religion: Disasters and the representations of tradition and modernity

Based on ethnographic research, this article explores local explanations for and interpretations of the earthquake which occurred on the island of Java, Indonesia in May 2006, costing 6000 lives and leaving about 1 million people homeless. Although everybody knows that the disaster was the result of tectonic activity, this knowledge co-exists with religious beliefs in manifold ways. The most widespread accounts of the earthquake referred to local myths connected to the landscape. The spirits are said to have sent the disaster in order to remind the Javanese - and most importantly the Sultan and other people in power - of their traditions. Several rituals were invented to prevent more misery, and certain experts thereby gained considerable importance. The various ways in which people shaped, interpreted and negotiated the meaning of the disaster are interconnected with their understanding of tradition and modernity. This article argues that - whereas Javanese culture was based on an image of the reconciliation of these spheres before - the discourse on the earthquake reveals a new tendency to polarise: on the one hand modernity is associated with secularisation, materialism, moral decay and ecological exploitation, while on the other hand tradition is idealised according to a global model of spirituality and harmony. Thus, the main argument of this paper is that the culturalisation of a natural event brings both cultural and transcultural dynamics to light.     

Wanting to Be Boss and Wanting to Be Subordinate: Effects on Performance Motivation

Does dyad members' motivation to take on a high or low power position influence the dyad's performance motivation when assigned to hierarchical roles? Participants in 69 dyads (33 all‐women, 36 all‐men) indicated whether they preferred the high‐power role (owner of an art gallery) or the low power role (assistant to the owner). Power roles were then randomly assigned. The dyad's interaction during task solving was videotaped. Uninvolved coders rated performance motivation as the degree of quality of the superior's and the subordinate's task contributions and effort put into the task. Performance motivation was better if the boss preferred the high power to the low power role, irrespective of the subordinate's role preference. Leadership effectiveness is thus affected by the superior's power motivation.